Noob help on graphics card

A

Azulthewise

n00b
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
56
Alright guys heres the problem I'm a college student looking to upgrade my old pc I don't have very much money as I work at a gamestop part time. Anyways in terms of graphics im going from 2 6800gs card (least I think they are 6800gs) I want to attend my second semester online and I want to be able to play crysis on medium settings at least. My question is what would be a good card to upgrade to that isn't to expensive.
 
I don't know the tech on my pc as I haven't ever looked but im sure my cpu is a singe core T_T pc is 5-6 years old maybe older can't remeber. Would honestly love to get my hands on a 4870 price wise though it isn't possible. will take a look at the link in a second

I took a look the 4850 seems like its up my ally thanks for the help guys. Would buying a 3870 be any good ?
 
Not too great on Crysis, but it'd play other games at a somewhat reasonable framerate w/ medium/low settings.
 
Azulthewise said:
I don't know the tech on my pc as I haven't ever looked but im sure my cpu is a singe core T_T pc is 5-6 years old maybe older can't remeber. Would honestly love to get my hands on a 4870 price wise though it isn't possible. will take a look at the link in a second

I took a look the 4850 seems like its up my ally thanks for the help guys. Would buying a 3870 be any good ?
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theres no point in sticking in a decent graphics card if you a 5 or 6 year old pc. you are at the point where upgrading is futile. also you probably have agp slot so these cards will not work anyway.
 
I guess they'd both better upgrade then staying with my current cards. I'll go the 4850 route seems to play crysis on high. currently with my cards I can't even play on low pc sounds like it would blow up if I attempted to play on medium.
 
Azulthewise said:
I guess they'd both better upgrade then staying with my current cards. I'll go the 4850 route seems to play crysis on high. currently with my cards I can't even play on low pc sounds like it would blow up if I attempted to play on medium.
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you are wasting your time and money. you likely dont even have the proper slot if your pc is 5 or 6 years old. nothing but a new pc is going to help you. a $350-$400 pc from Best Buy along with an $80 4670 card would be like a supercomputer compared to what you have now.
 
Actually from what I know about my pc it is am2+ and have 2 pci express slots was gifted to me about 5 years back not sure could have been 6 years I know that it was about 1600$ when it was bought. Doubt that I could slap a pheanom in there nor would my power supply due but I might make it on just a slight cpu upgrade and a new gpu 1gb ram is enough I guess for now.
 
Azulthewise said:
Actually from what I know about my pc it is am2+ and have 2 pci express slots was gifted to me about 5 years back not sure could have been 6 years I know that it was about 1600$ when it was bought. Doubt that I could slap a pheanom in there nor would my power supply due but I might make it on just a slight cpu upgrade and a new gpu 1gb ram is enough I guess for now.
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well that pc is certainly not 5 or 6 years old but because that stuff didnt even exist back then. you really need to find out the rest of your specs in detail and list them.
 
Right, am2+ wasnt around. If you are sure it is 5-6 yrs old, it is brutally slow and has a agp slot at best. Time for a real upgrade. No cheap fix available.
 
will do but im sure its about 5 as I had it a year before my old 360 in 05 but i'll take a look at the specs as I'm sure I'm wrong on the am2+ thing. When I get home I'll post the specs.
 
alg7_munif said:
Here's a news flash, AGP doesn't support SLI so if he had 6800GS in SLI, he would have two PCI-E slots. My bet, the CPU is a S754 AMD 64 or a S939 AMD 64 X2.
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well if you are referring to me I didnt realize he said he had 2 6800 cards. I saw the post where he says his comp his 5 or 6 years old so thats what I commented on. he seems to be very confused about what he has so until he figures that out no one can really help.
 
If the processor is 5 years old, isn't the cpu going to bottleneck even a middle of the road video card?
 
At least he knows that he has two graphic cards so it would mean that he has two PCI-E slots. He also said that his PC is old so that could rule out P4 as well because earlier Intel mobos don't support SLI. The first Intel mobo supporting SLI would be mobos with nForce 4 Intel edition chipset. Those mobos ware expensive and I doubt that someone would pair it with a P4.
 
nforce 4 is on the money evga if im not mistaken might not be as old as I stated I do know I had it before my 360 back in 05 by at least 6 months placing between 4-5 years of age I guess the cpu might be single core as it doesnt bare the x2 after the name. Also tho I have read good things about the 8800gtx I'm looking at ati as I've always found their cards to look awsome(been looking at upgrading for a while) just recently with all the new card I can't seem to figure out what would be better for my aged rig.
 
alg7_munif said:
He also said that his PC is old so that could rule out P4 as well because earlier Intel mobos don't support SLI. The first Intel mobo supporting SLI would be mobos with nForce 4 Intel edition chipset. Those mobos ware expensive and I doubt that someone would pair it with a P4.
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the AMD 64 X2 was released in mid 2005, so that is only a little over 3 years old.

would the Athlon 64 FX-51 work?

edit: nevermind i guess its an nforce 4
 
Bought my pc from Ibuypower I planned to update my cpu later to an x2 . need to learn things before I go tinkering.
 
Okay sorry for the double post here's what I know about my pc cpu:amd athlon 64 3200 2.01GHz 1gb of ram , nforce4 motherbord, and the 2 68000gs cards :p
 
Azulthewise said:
Okay sorry for the double post here's what I know about my pc cpu:amd athlon 64 3200 2.01GHz 1gb of ram , nforce4 motherbord, and the 2 68000gs cards :p
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you need a better cpu and at least 1 more gig of ram before getting a good video card.
 
Figured as much but the way it looks would it just be better to wait for the phenom 2 and build a new system?
 
Azulthewise said:
Figured as much but the way it looks would it just be better to wait for the phenom 2 and build a new system?
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What resolution do you use. I went from two 6800Ultras in SLI to a single 7950GT and got a nice performance boost. I used a dual core Athlon X2 @2.5Ghz though and my resolution is 1920x1200. At that resolution, anything up to 8800GT would definitely be better than the 6800s in SLi.

If you buy a faster card than the 8800GT, you are actually limiting the full potential of the card but at least it would still be an increase when compared to the 6800s in SLI.
 
With the single core, i would say that you will not get much actual perforance from the newer gen card, I wouldn't be surprised if your sli 6800's were cpu limited in a few games also.

Crysis is demanding on CPU/ram so i doubt even if you got a new card you could play it with reasonable results.

Upgrading to a cheap intel or amd dual core would probably give you more room to work with.
 
the res I play at is low anything past 900 tends to give my system weird graphics glitches I think the best thing to do would be make a minor upgrade cpu wise and hold off for making a phenom 2 system. Maybe I'll buy a 4850 for now to hold me over on graphics as well. Thanks for the help guys If anyone has a used 4850 they don't want pm me I know this isn't the buy sell trade section but I've yet to reach 50 post :(
 
Azulthewise said:
the res I play at is low anything past 900 tends to give my system weird graphics glitches I think the best thing to do would be make a minor upgrade cpu wise and hold off for making a phenom 2 system. Maybe I'll buy a 4850 for now to hold me over on graphics as well. Thanks for the help guys If anyone has a used 4850 they don't want pm me I know this isn't the buy sell trade section but I've yet to reach 50 post :(
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if you dont get a better cpu and especially more ram then some newer games wont even be playable at all.
 
+1 on the cpu. Going to need a e8400 / Q600 at 3.2 to get you through the year. I got a 4850 myself and love it. My native res. is 1920x1200. But playing games at 1680x1050 gets the fps up nicely, and I can usually turn up the eye candy and AA. Look on newegg, you can find an open box 4850. I got mine for $102 at newegg.
 
Just goto Control Panel, System then look at device manager and General

Tell us what CPU, video cards and mobo you have. We could help you out alot better then, and you more then likely have an AGP slot.
 
Azulthewise said:
Thanks for the info looking at open box only concern is that everything I need wont come with it :p
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Yup, my card came with nothing. No box, no adapters, no manuals, no driver cds, etc.
Only thing you might need are the adapters. A buddy of mind had an extra HDMI adapter
that he is letting me use. Card is great though.
 
hmm guess thats not too terribly bad so long as I can use the card thanks guys for all the help. another question lets say I wanted to sell my 6800gs cards they came with my system so I don't have and cds that came with em that wouldn't be an issue to who ever bought them would it?
 
Azulthewise said:
hmm guess thats not too terribly bad so long as I can use the card thanks guys for all the help. another question lets say I wanted to sell my 6800gs cards they came with my system so I don't have and cds that came with em that wouldn't be an issue to who ever bought them would it?
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no thats not an issue since nothing on those old cds would be of any use. all someone has to do is get the newest drivers from nvidias site.
 
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